Back in October of last year, I shared a post about a little piece of plastic that was making a big name for two product designers. They launched “The Glif” through Kickstarter and got their funding in just a day or two. This week, they came back and did it again with “The Cosmonaut”. A fat bodied stylus for touchscreen tablets such as the iPad, Xoom, etc.

Since the guys behind this like doing things a bit differently, they did a pay-as-much-as-you-like deal on this one. It was an interesting experiment to watch. They offered 3000 slots for backers to pledge as much as they would like and receive The Cosmonaut. That meant that you could pledge $1, and that would get you the stylus shipped to your door. They said it was based on Radiohead’s offer of the same format for one of their albums.

The big difference here is that Tom and Dan have to pay for each item sold, while Radiohead basically paid once to produce the album. But, because of the Kickstarter system, they knew they wouldn’t lose because the project wouldn’t continue unless the goal was met. Just two days into it they hit 3000 backers for a total of $44,550, about 10% short of the goal. But, the smart business men behind this added another opportunity to buy the item at their suggested retail of $25. They hit the goal shortly after.

Here is what I love about this story. It reminds me of the good old days with the coin jar next to the coffee pot. Working on the honor system and letting people toss a few cents or a dollar in for their coffee, whatever they saw fair at the time. How long has it been since you’ve seen that? These days, it seems that people would expect the money to disappear along with the coffee. Using a neat tool these guys were able to show that a vast majority of people are willing to pay something reasonable for a product. They were able to gather great data in the form of “what the market will bear”, then turn it all into a profit making opportunity by charging what they want in the end.

My guess is that they will break $100,000 easily by the time the funding round is done. Not bad for the initial launch of a product that isn’t even built yet. No inventory, not much spent on marketing, just the cost of R&D, which these guys do themselves. Not too shabby if you ask me.

And if you’re curious. My pledge-

After a few days being surrounded by nerds and listening to superstar nerds (nerds rock by the way!) discuss business startups and success I noticed one common thought- SHIP IT! A great idea with no execution will get you no where.

Then just yesterday I see a tweet from another local video lover/producer and iPhone 4 owner about a cool new product. It’s a simple tripod mount and stand for the phone. The guys who created it saw a need for something like it, made a working prototype and went to kickstarter.com for funding. I clicked the link and pledged $20 at about 1 PM yesterday. At that time they had raised a little over $12,000 of the $10,000 they needed to get started.

Well guess what, this morning the number was over $42,000! Two guys, one good idea that they turned into something useful and now look where they’re at. With a month to go I can only assume that they will easily make more than they ever planned with their product. And this is exactly what all of the superstars said to do. Congrats to Dan and Tom on turning a hobby into some real money!

So I’m at my first tech conference. Well, at least the first big one anyhow…. It’s Tahoe Tech Talk time at Harrah’s in South Lake Tahoe. Closely followed/joined by a food and wine festival featuring none other than Gary Vaynerchuk and Anthony Bourdain!!

I’m new to this part of the tech world. I follow a lot of these guys in the online world, to the point that i feel like I know them. (Does that sound creepy???)

Anyhow the point is this- I had the chance to meet some awesome folks tonight. Walked up, said hi and found out that they’re normal people. There’s some sort of veil that hangs between the online world and offline world that makes it seem, to me anyway, that these folks are just a voice out in the cloud.

One of the coolest guys that I’ve met so far you probably haven’t even heard of, yet…. Charles Meyer. He’s a young man even in this room. But from the moment you meet him you know he’s excited about what he’s doing. Although he couldn’t tell me about most of it due to NDA’s, but promised it will be big. We’ve all heard that before.Hell, I’ve said that before! But for some reason i believe him. He recounted his story of opening a car detailing business at the ripe age of 13, which went on to service three different cities. I hope to see the young man do great things.

I met Charles sort of through Jen Friel. I was talking to a Reno local that I sort of know and said “Nerds are cool!”. Apparently that made her happy! You see, she runs Talk Nerdy to me Lover, so she obviously loves geeks. Check out her blog, it’s got a cool story behind it.

I then ran into the two ladies blocking the dessert table from Tweety Got Back. They love chocolate. I love food. Made for easy conversation. Turns out that they started out doing MySpace backgrounds quite a few years ago and turned it into a business. Smart ladies! And to boot, Heather Capri just about has me talked into getting into the voice over business.

As I walked out I saw Gary Vaynerchuk and Chris Sacca and had to say hi. A little surprised that Gary is a little guy in stature. But then again, most guys look little to me… Here’s the guy changing the wine world, writing books, leading many brands to fame and called to speak all over the world, standing in my backyard, shaking my hand. Then Chris Sacca in his well known “cowboy clown” shirt. This is one of the guys that funded twitter, that’s kind of huge to nerds…. He was texting/emailing from his phone, probably moving more money than I will see in a few years of hard work.

Another note- the conference hasn’t even really started yet, this was just the pre-event mixer. Harrah’s even had a mashed potato bar, I remember doing those a few years back….

Here’s what I learned- it’s still about the people. Regardless of who they are, what they’ve done or what they will do they’re just people. And once you understand people your life, especially in business, gets a little easier. Cheers to a great weekend. I’m off to find the after party, or middle party since it’s not over yet…..

I’m admitting it right out of the gate- I’m an Apple fanboy! I was at my desk this morning with live blogs, twitter streams and the keynote streaming on the iPad.

This last week has just confirmed what i like so much about Apple products- they just work. In the past week I have spent no less than 60 hours fiddling with my PC. Random crashes that I couldn’t duplicate, funny things happening with files, nothing dependable. Keep in mind that I spend a good part of just about everyday at my desk…. this got frustrating real quick! It’s all fixed now, luckily.

To answer your question- I built this PC before I was a dedicated Apple fanboy. If I was buying something new today it would be a Mac, and that day is getting closer and closer.

Anyhow, here are my thoughts on the announcements today from Apple-

Apple iPod lineup- I have no need for these since I use my iPhone for all of my music needs. Well that and an old Creative Zen that stays in the truck to keep things easy. I will probably never buy one but I would say that Apple has made just enough changes to keep the fans forking over their cash. Touch screens, clips, better interfaces and all just to listen to music. Apple wrote the book on digital mobile music and it’s clear to me that they’re still ahead of the pack.

New OS for iPhone/iPad- HDR photos and HD video uploads are the best things on the horizon for me. Just today I shot a short video with the iPhone, edited it with iMovie in all of its HD glory….then lost that in upload… To me this was the major downfall in the workflow. What’s the point of having an HD camera on your phone when you can’t share it easily? As for the HDR, it would make a photo like this look much better-

One day this may go on Ebay to find a true Apple geek....

The 4.2 iOS for iPad will bring me the threaded emails, multitasking and folder functions that it’s missing. I haven’t taken my laptop out of the house since I bought my iPad, the new OS will make things a bit easier to accomplish.

iTunes 10 with Ping- not real excited about this one. Seems like they made it easy for us to sell their goods. Chris Brogan has a decent write up on social commerce regarding Ping. But, I will still sign up and follow some folks to see how it works.

Apple TV- this is what I was waiting for! I’ve been looking around at parts to build my own Home Theater PC over the last few weeks. Just couldn’t justify the cost to stream video and music around the house. Not to mention the lack of any decent interface to use while doing it. Apple TV solves the issues I had in one little, inexpensive box. I was sitting at the desk refreshing the Apple Store page until it was open, then ordered mine up. It will deliver the two things that I want easily- Netflix and streaming from my server. A friend of mine had a good thought today about the future of the device as well- game play. Seems likely that they will open it up to developers and add another media to the ever growing list of iTunes products. Think about that, turn on the TV, download a new game and play in minutes. No running to the store, no new devices, just simple.

What really got me excited was that I can use my iPad to run the TV, one big touchscreen remote!

Overall, what I like about Apple and their products are that they just work. No messing with anything, it just does what it’s supposed to. They’re not the best choice if you’re into tinkering with gadgets but if you just want something that turns on, does what you need it to and never has an issues then Apple is the way to go. I’ll be picking up a Mac as soon as I have an extra $3000 to spare, for now I will keep plugging away on the PC.

And to my Android loving friends, I understand why you hate Apple. I just disagree…… case in point- try opening a google map link on your google OS, it doesn’t work….